Chapter 59 – The Crane Shadow Steps
Ye Chen heard about this legendary story from the pavilion master.
The pavilion master also happened to be a warrior who had trained in the Crane Shadow Steps. According to him, executing the Crane Shadow Steps with his peak Early Clasping Yuan Realm cultivation allowed him to traverse two hundred meters in one leap; it was faster than half the speed of sound, from that, you could tell how powerful the Crane Shadow Steps was.
However, even the pavilion master could not fully exhibit the Crane Shadow Steps art to its full potential, so he trained in a different low-rank Earth Realm movement art, called the Fleeting Body of Lightness Art. He could move two hundred and fifty meters each second, a full fifty meters more than the Crane Shadow Steps art.
“Two hundred and fifty meters...it is three times more the distance than mine.” Ye Chen felt quite accomplished with his movement art, since he could move eighty meters in the blink of an eye. A normal Mortal Realm warrior would not even be able to catch his shadow, but compared to the pavilion master, he was nothing. He would probably be killed in a single move.
Forcing a smile, Ye Chen knew he was being arrogant. There was no comparing his cultivation and the pavilion master’s. Perhaps when he reached the Clasping Yuan Realm, covering two hundred and fifty meters in a single move would not be a big deal anymore.
Without reason to delay any longer, Ye Chen took out the Crane Shadow Steps manual from his storage ring and started to read it from the beginning.
There were three key factors for training the Crane Shadow Steps art. First was the body movement. Second was the method of accumulating qi. Third was the mentality. The body movement and the method of accumulating qi were quite self-explanatory, but the most crucial factor was the mentality. A cultivator must imagine himself as a magical crane, and combine the two as one. Only by being able to do so, could a cultivator display its full power and boost the speed up to the peak level.
It seemed quite easy, and since all that was needed was to use your imagination, anyone could do that. However, people that were truly capable of using their imagination and able to bring out the full potential of this art were extremely rare, even one in a hundred thousand might not be able to do so.
Considering the fact that humans were one of the most complicated organisms, its secrets were still not fully discovered. Only the warriors who had reached the fifth stage of the Spirit Ocean Realm could see through it, understand the true meaning of life and death, and able to apply it to themselves to slow down their life, enabling them to live for thousands of years. However, once one reached that level of power, every breakthrough in their training would have to go through a punishment from the gods, either the thunder tribulation, the fire tribulation, or the Yuan challenge. Each challenge and punishment were completely different and each change had different layers. If the warriors managed to survive it, then they could carry on learning about the true meaning of life and prepare for stepping into the legendary seventh power level. If not, then they would have disappeared completely into ashes and drifted into the wind, leaving no traces.
Legendary people like the Fake King, Mysterious Queen, Evil King, and the Dragon King were warriors who went through the challenge of life or death and had extended their life by thousands of years. They had fully reached their potential. If they were to learn the Crane Shadow Steps art, they would be able to learn it in seconds, but for their status and power, they would not appreciate the Crane Shadow Steps for sure, even the magical cranes would not mean anything to them.
Of course, stimulating potentials was only one of the benefits of learning the true meaning of life, not all of it. And thousand years later, they would still die like the rest of us.
We shall talk about this at another time.
Thinking about stimulating his potential, even just for a little bit, Ye Chen sighed. He thought, no wonder so many people could not get the essence of the Crane Shadow Steps, it was because they had never seen the magical cranes. Without actually seeing them, how would they know their mentality and their habits, he was afraid he might end up being the same.
Whatever, without the mentality of the magical crane, it is still one of the greatest top rank Mortal Realm Movement art. Many people who really wanted to learn it, didn’t even have the opportunity to get their hands on it.
After being slightly disappointed, Ye Chen brought himself back up, he knew the first thing he needed to do was to master the Crane Shadow Steps to its peak, and worry about the rest later.
Everyone always said there was no time in the mountains, which was true.
One-month passed by while Ye Chen was putting all his effort in training the Crane Shadow Steps. Maybe it was because of the stimulating mentality, or the people who were active grew faster, Ye Chen who was only fifteen had grown from one hundred and seventy centimeters to one hundred and seventy-five centimeters. Without cloths, he looked slim but not skinny at all; he had a wide shoulder and a small waist, the muscle around his arm and chest were crazily strong. Standing there, he fully represented the masculinity as how it should be, even though he was only fifteen years old.
After one-month of training, Ye Chen had now already fully understood the Crane Shadow Steps, and his Pure Jun Zhen Qi art had also reached the peak of the sixth stage. His defensive qi light had changed from crystal clear to light blue, which largely enhanced its power.
Right now, he could use the method of accumulating qi from the Crane Shadow Steps and jump into the clouds in front of the cliff, and he was now able to use the defensive qi light to cut open a tunnel and come back onto the cliff midair like a true flying magical crane, even the gravity could not restrain his body anymore.
Right now, each jump of mine could reach one hundred meters, plus the protection of the defensive qi light, and the inner protection from the Pure Jade Body Boosting Spell, my power had increase at least one time stronger. If I encounter that Cui Shiming again, I could beat him in three moves, but he was only a normal Mid Condensing Reality Realm warrior, not a genius, a lot of his martial skills had not been mastered to its peak yet, which was nothing worth mentioning. If I meet a peak Early Condensing Reality Realm warrior with few fully mastered martial skills, it would still be probably pretty challenging for me to beat him, too bad there is no opportunities for me to test it, otherwise, I could finally know what kind of level my power had reached, and where my limit is.
Ye Chen thought to himself, but he could not find an answer.
He thought he was a genius, but in this true spirit continent, the things that were least lacking were geniuses. Before, there was the Mysterious Queen who had stepped into the challenge of life or death at her teenage years, being one of the top warriors, she was at the same level of the Evil King and the rest. Then, there was the four Childe of the Wind Nation. The reason they were referred as the Top Four Childe was because they were horrifyingly impressive in all kinds of areas, otherwise, they would not earn their reputation.
But of course, for the Top Four Childe of the Wind Nation, Ye Chen was only envious, but they were not powerful enough for him to be shocked. The Wind Nation was only a small nation in the South Zhuo area, there were twenty-four other small nations, ten medium nations and three huge nations in the whole south zhuo area. Even a small nation like the Wind Nation had people like the Top Four Childe, you could imagine what kind of powerful warriors were out there.
Not only that, even the Rudra Nation did not care for Wind Nation, they consistently sent out armies to disturb the border of the Wind Nation, and asked their soldiers to disguise as robbers to rob the businessmen from the Wind Nation.
Besides the national power, there were also countless geniuses in the Rudra Nation, sometimes there were even more geniuses than most of other small nations, and they could compete with all the medium nations.
If it wasn’t for the Top Four Childe holding up Wind Nation’s reputation for the past few years, Wind Nation would already be a joke to other nations.
Ding! Ding! Ding!...
Right then, a sound of the bell ringing had come from the middle of the mountain, which spread miles and miles.
Ye Chen’s eyebrows twitched. He knew that only the Floating Cloud Palace in the Sky Cloud Martial School would ring bells, just like the inner disciple entrance tests, although there was a huge difference between ringing the bell and smashing the bell.
It should be the Sky Cloud Martial School releasing school missions, anyways, I’ll go check it out.
His figure blurred, the next second, Ye Chen landed on a huge tree a hundred meters away. Then, his body shifted, and disappeared completely.